


yet again

by dumbkili



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Growing Up, Reminiscing, dipper throws eggs at bill what more could you want from a fic, spoilers for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbkili/pseuds/dumbkili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gravity Falls had existed unchanged for generations. The same streets, the same roads, the same kind of people. The same monsters and multibears in the woods, the same gnomes. The same health code violations in the diner and the same dozy law enforcement. It was the kind of place that was happy to do things the same way it always had, and it was the kind of place that didn’t appreciate people trying to come in and mess with it. So, as could be expected, ten years hadn’t changed it much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yet again

**Author's Note:**

> this is from another prompt i got on tumblr btw from sburban-mom:
> 
> OK SO IF UR STILL TAKING PROMPTS... Mabel returns to gravity falls with her brother after college and as she talks to everyone and kind of catches up she notices Pacifica is like. Following her around. And good naturedly she finally confronts pacífica and it ends with them chatting and talking about how they’ve grown. sprinkle on mabifica if desired but imagine the narrative about maturity and friendship and self worth!!! Anyway I’m dumb but yea

Gravity Falls had existed unchanged for generations. The same streets, the same roads, the same kind of people. The same monsters and multibears in the woods, the same gnomes. The same health code violations in the diner and the same dozy law enforcement. It was the kind of place that was happy to do things the same way it always had, and it was the kind of place that didn’t appreciate people trying to come in and mess with it. So, as could be expected, ten years hadn’t changed it much.

 

Mabel dropped her duffle bag on the dusty attic mattress and and breathed in deeply, letting the smell of moisture and possibly rodent droppings fill her nose. Another summer. She snuck a glance over her shoulder at her brother, who’d thrown his ratty pillow on his own bed and declared himself unpacked.

 

“You ready to head into town, bro?” she asked him. It was great to see him again. The last time they’d been face-to-face was last August. After 18 years of being attached at the hip, the forced separation of college had come as a shock to both of them. She still kinda wished they’d been able to go to the same school, but it had also been a good learning experience to be apart. It was healthy for siblings to make friends that weren’t each other. Still, she’d missed her Dippin’ Dots.

 

“What? Yeah, sure,” he said, jerking up from where he’d sprawled himself out on the bed. “Stan ‘n Ford said they’d meet us at Greasy’s, but they might be late. I dunno when their bus gets in.” He adjusted the ratty old pine tree cap he’d only just taken back from Wendy for the tenth year in a row. “Let’s do it.”

 

They said goodbye to Soos and Melody down in the gift shop, which took five times as long as it reasonably should have, since Mabel _had_ to coo at Melody’s barely-there baby bump for the third time that day. Then they headed out into the woods.

 

“Ugh, I don’t wanna drive,” Mabel groaned, staring at the ancient pickup truck. “Stick shift is hell, Dipper.  _Hell_.”

 

“Hey, don’t look at me,” her brother replied. “I don’t even have my licence yet.”

 

“What? Dip, we’re twenty-two. Almost twenty-three! You go to school in the middle of nowhere, you need to learn how to drive,” Mabel admonished. Dipper, for his part, looked sufficiently embarrassed.

 

“I know, I know, I just… the driving test is really stressful, okay? And taking the bus is better for the environment, anyway.”

 

“True,” Mabel allowed. “Let’s just walk. Maybe we’ll be able to say hi to some Manotaurs or something!” She immediately set off down the road, enjoying the feeling of the slightly cool evening air blowing through her loose hair. Dipper followed, but his focus was more on the cellphone he’d taken out of his pocket. Mabel frowned. “Who are you texting? A friend? A _significant_ _other_?” She grinned at his annoyed look.

 

“You know I don’t have any of those, Mabes.” He showed her the screen, which was filled with a conspiracy news site, before she could ask if he meant significant others or friends. “I was just checking if Gravity Falls was still up here.”

 

“What?” she asked, then waved to a couple of gnomes in a tree. “Hey Steve! Hey James!” They waved back at her before scampering away. One of them was holding a dead squirrel. “Ha. I love those guys.”

 

“Well, you know how the Falls have been, like, ‘on the radar’ since Weirdmageddon, right?” Dipper asked, with accompanying air quotes. Mabel nodded. There had been a definite uptick in business at the Mystery Shack since that whole thing went down, which was probably due to the few status updates and photos uploaded during the event that made their way to the outside world. Most of the ‘evidence’ for Weirdmageddon was written off as an elaborate hoax, but they still got wackos every summer looking for demons and magic. The town had gained itself a big reputation as a supernatural hotspot, but not to anyone who actually mattered (like the U.S. Government), just to the amateurs (the guys with their mom’s cameras and a dream). “This website I subscribe to just started a series on the town. It’s pretty funny. They’ve gotten almost everything wrong.”

 

“What do they say about us?”

 

Dipper cleared his throat dramatically and read off the screen. “Gravity Falls: Innocent tourism driven hamlet, or Satanic witch-coven capital of the American Northwest? In this week’s installment of our fifty-five part series, we will detail to the reader the exact nature of the town’s _suspicious_ past, with information from an inside source!” He looked up from his phone. “Also, sidenote, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that their inside source is the Mystery Shack’s website.”

 

“I think it says a lot about you that you know it’s all wrong and you subscribed to it anyway,” Mabel said. Dipper rolled his eyes.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m weird, I know.” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “So how’s art school going?”

 

The rest of the walk into town was filled with a rage fueled rant about the horrors of project deadlines and the unfairness of _some_ professors in their _obviously_ _flawed_ grading systems.

 

The sun was definitely beginning to set by the time they got into town. Ten years of wear and tear and even the apocalypse didn’t keep the place from looking exactly the same as it had the very first time the twins had laid eyes on it. Only the people looked different. More gray hairs, more wrinkles around the eyes. Still, it was nice. It felt like home.

 

“I have to say hi to _absolutely_ _everyone_ ,” Mabel declared solemnly, and Dipper sighed. They obviously weren’t going into Greasy’s anytime soon. Although, just from taking a peek in the windows, he could tell that their uncles weren’t in there, either. And if they weren’t in there now, they probably wouldn’t be for a while.

 

“Hey, I’m gonna text Wendy, see if she wants to pick me up so we can go egg Bill’s statue again,” he said, tapping Mabel’s shoulder once in farewell. She waved him off, laughing.

 

“You two have some really weird traditions.”

 

“I mean, he did try to kill us. Like four times. So I think it’s justified.”

 

“I never said it wasn’t!” Mabel said, still giggling. She wandered away from Dipper, going further into town and, true to her word, saying hi to _literally_ everyone she saw. Tambry, Nate, Mayor Tyler, Lazy Susan, Manly Dan, even Toby Determined. They all got a wave and a couple of minutes of conversation (except Toby, who was still somehow weirder than she remembered him being). Needless to say, her progress down the street was slow. So she noticed when Pacifica Northwest somehow managed to stay ten feet behind her for the entire extent of her trip, never passing her or getting close enough to talk properly.

 

Pacifica had grown up a lot in the last few years- well, they all had, but sometimes when Mabel compared the bratty preteen she’d met at a party to the woman she knew now, she felt staggered. It wasn’t a drastic difference physically, since Paz still had her platinum blonde hair and designer clothes, but the way she held herself was a complete turnaround. She stuck her hips out less, moved more fluidly. She’d stopped trying to be sharp.

 

Not that Mabel was like, _staring_ at her or anything.

 

After about half an hour of the stalker act, Mabel had had enough. She hadn’t outrun a dream demon when she was twelve for _this_. She said her goodbyes to Gabe (still with the puppets on his hands, yeesh) and quickly ducked around the corner of the street, then waited. After a few seconds Pacifica followed her, and nearly slammed into her to boot.

 

“Ah! Mabel! W-what… what are you… when did you get back in town?” Paz stuttered unconvincingly. Mabel grinned. Her attempts at bluffing were _adorable_ , especially since Mabel herself had practically been raised by a conman.

 

“You can drop the act, Pacifica. Why were you following me?” Mabel raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t trying to pickpocket me or anything, right?”

 

Pacifica grimaced. “Ew, no. I was just… I don’t know, actually. I saw you, and…” She looked at the ground, her cheeks bright red. “Iwastooshytotalktoyou.”

 

“Sorry, what?” Mabel asked. “That was really quiet.” She jokingly placed a hand on her hip and put on a creaky false voice. “I’m an old woman now, Pacifica. Can’t keep up with you youngins.”

 

“Shut up,” Pacifica laughed, shoving her friend’s shoulder. “You’re like, a week older than me.” She sobered up quickly though. “I was too shy to talk to you.”

 

“What!” Mabel exclaimed, completely dropping her old lady act. “Paz, we’ve been friends since we were twelve!” Pacifica groaned and covered her face with both hands.

 

“I know! But you were talking to everyone and suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about when we _weren’t_ friends- I said Mabel was a fat old lady’s name! The first time we met!” Her face looked warm enough to fry an egg on.

 

“I took it as a compliment!” Mabel protested. “It was fine!”

 

“It wasn’t fine,” Pacifica shot back. “It was mean. And nasty. And you were so sweet to me the whole time! Ugh!”

 

“You’ve grown a lot since then, you know,” Mabel assured her, placing one hand on her shoulder. Pacifica looked up at her, a question in her eyes. “Yeah! You have! D’ya think the girl that almost got us both killed over mini-golf would apologize for _one_ rude thing she said _at the time_ , let alone ten years later?”

 

“Probably not,” Pacifica admitted. “Better late than never, I guess.”

 

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel cried, pumping her fist. “‘Better Late Than Never’ is the Pines family motto, you know.”

 

“Wait, seriously?”

 

“Pfft, no, silly. But it might as well be,” Mabel said, serious for a moment. Then she brightened back up. “Hey, since Dipper abandoned me to go throw eggs at a rock all night, do you wanna get some ice cream or something?”  
  


 

“Really?” asked Pacifica. The redness was slowly starting to drain from her face. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

 

“Cool!” Mabel cried, leading the way to the ice-cream parlor. “Okay, let’s talk shop for a second. Favorite flavor. Go. There’s no wrong answer.” She placed a hand next to her mouth and said in a stage whisper, “ _There’s a wrong answer._ ”

 

Pacifica smiled a little bit as she pretended to think about it. “Vanilla, I guess.”

 

“BEEP!” Mabel shouted. “That was the wrong answer! Vanilla, Paz, really? That’s so boring!”

 

“Maybe _I’m_ boring,” replied Pacifica. “Maybe I _like_ boring things.”

 

“Well I know that’s not true,” Mabel said sweetly. “‘Cuz you like _me_.” She struck a pose in the middle of the sidewalk and then took a double take, narrowing her eyes. “Wait. What’s got you all blushy again?”

 

“Nothing!” Pacifica squeaked, red as a cherry tomato. “Let’s keep walking!”

 

“Pacifica.”

 

“Nope!”

 

“Paz! Oh my god!” Mabel’s voice was rapidly climbing up to a pitch only bats could hear. “Do you like me? Oh my gosh. I should have prepared a sheet. A questionnaire. Anything!”

 

“No, no, no no no no,” said Pacifica, walking faster. “This is not happening. This is _not_ happening.”

 

“Oh, it’s happening, baby,” Mabel insisted, slinging one arm around Pacifica’s shoulders. “Unless you’re genuinely uncomfortable right now in which case I’ll back off and never speak about this incident again if you don’t want me to, of course.”

 

“I…” Pacifica hesitated. Mabel’s face was open and honest. She was being sincere. If Pacifica decided she wanted to drop it, it would be dropped, no questions asked. But… She’d come this far. And she was tired of not talking about it anyway. “It’s fine.”

 

“Yes!” Mabel said, almost to herself. “Good talk, Paz. Real good talk.”

 

“Heh, yeah. Guess it was.”

**Author's Note:**

> im ciphereye on tumblr! and this is like the third fic im posting in three days im so hype right now it's ridiculous hit me with your prompts


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